Fury's Thoughts
by Vellor The Ancient
Summary: a cannon perspective from Fury based on the assumption he isn't an idiot


Nick Fury was an experienced and extremely intelligent spy. It came with being a "spymaster". You didn't survive long enough to be put in charge of other spies, let alone a spy organization with it's fingers in every part of the world, without being smart and getting your hands dirty.

So he had known for a while that something wasn't right.

Through SHIELD he had eyes and ears in a lot of places, not only through the agents that were a part of SHIELD and operations they were running, but also from NATO and other allied nation's intelligence services.

As Director of SHIELD he was one of the most well informed men on the planet when it came to who was running operations in what part of the world, both the operations of those who he worked with, and those he worked against.

Part and parcel of this was knowing who had infiltrated who.

It was part of the business. The very operations you ordered your agents to do in hopes of penetrating another group opened you up to penetration. What looked like your agent succesfully infiltrating another group could easily be your agent being flipped on you. Likewise what looked like you succesfully flipping an enemy agent could be them fooling you.

Wheels within wheels within wheels.

Smart supervisors and directors of intelligence organizations knew this and would work, not to remove any leaks, but to isolate the sources and use them to feed information back, or even just let them be and keep track of them and what they found out.

Better the devil you know.

In doing this you would get a feel for what groups were trying to infiltrate your organization and which of them succeeded.

Which lead to the worry that had been nagging Fury for almost as long as he had been Director of SHIELD.

There was an unknown player. A devil he most certainly did not know.

Not a new player, but a group that had almost everyone infiltrated on multiple levels, appeared to have been doing so for a very long time, and for the life of him he couldn't figure out who they were working for or with.

A truly unknown player that had their fingers in just as many places as SHIELD's Director? Who no one knew anything about?

This was the kind of thing that kept him up at night and gave him ulcers. If he wasn't already bald, he'd probably have gone gray in his first year as Director over this.

So his solution? The Avengers. He pitched it to the WSC as an idea for a new arm of SHIELD to match the ever escalating threats that conventional solutions couldn't match.

But in reality he wanted to build a group that would be able to even take down SHIELD if need be.

Because he wasn't sure that the WSC wasn't infiltrated. In the back of his mind he found himself dreading the natural assumption for someone as (justifiably) paranoid as he was; that the WSC was the source of the "infiltration".

It made too much sense and answered too many questions.

And that was the really scary part.

* * *

"You got a new job for me Director?"

His favorite agent. Yeah, he had just about shit himself when Barton and Coulson brought in the friggen Black Widdow with no warning after being slated to terminate her with extreme prejudice, but there wasn't a single agent he'd trust with this op other than her.

"Yes. I do." He slid Stark's file across the table to her, "I need you to blow this op Natasha."

"Excuse me sir?"

"You heard me. We have to handle this delicately. Don't blow it wide open, but find an excuse to put Stark on his guard. I need him primed to take the Avengers Initiative out of SHIELD's hands."

Natasha looked at him for less than a second before it clicked, "You think SHIELD is compromised."

"Ten ways from Sunday. Keep Clint out of the loop for now, Coulson has already been briefed and primed. I need this to look natural, like Stark threw a fit and took his toys home."

A deep inhale and exhale and she was set to go. "Got any ideas?"

"Blow the evaluation. Make it insulting and do something to get him suspicious. Between that, my 'winning" personality, and some of our research projects coming to light, he'll do the rest for us. I'll try to prime Rodgers for it too."

* * *

Stark really did think he was slick enough to pull one over on Nick fucking Fury? The man running the largest dedicated spy organization on the planet? He almost wanted to call that punk on putting that bug on his system on the spot, if only to deflate that ego. He'd been running black operations since before Stark had his first wet dream and that rich boy thought he'd get one over on him with his little excentric genius routine and some fast handwork?

Yeah, and unicorns are real, fart rainbows and cry diamonds.

But no doubt he, or rather JARVIS, would find the files on the weapons in stage 4. If he found out, Rodgers likely would, and it would be the push he needed to jump on Stark's 'steal the Avengers out from under Fury's nose' schtick.

Best part? They'd think it was their own idea.

Fury always did love it when he got others to do his plans for him while thinking it was their own idea. It felt like opening presents on Christmas morning.

* * *

"What do you think you are doing mister Stark? Aren't you supposed to be looking for the tesseract?" Fury sounded angry. He sounded like he was contemplating pulling a gun on Stark.

Inside he was dancing with glee.

Saying Fury had a poker face was like saying the Statue of Liberty was made of bronze. He'd probably earn Emmy's like a stripper earned singles if he got into the acting biz.

Then Rodgers came into the room and dropped one of the prototypes on the table.

It took every ounce of Fury's skill to keep the smirk off his face.

Like he'd keep anything behind a door that could be forced open without putting a few dozen alarms and possibly lethal traps on it unless he wanted it to be found.

Just like taking candy from a baby. Good thing that even with a rebelous streak a mile wide Rodgers was still too much of a straight shooter to even think about that.

After few angry words back and forth, Stark and Rodgers were standing side by side in full agreement.

Good thing Rodgers didn't get the same biased report that Stark got to see. Now Fury would just have to keep his fingers crossed that those two would play nice. Between Rodger's leadership abilities and Tony's techno-wizardry they'd be able to keep the team ready for anything.

Of course right as he was thinking everything was going according to plan, the Helicarrier started tilting drunkenly after losing an engine.

* * *

In the end it all came together. It was far closer than he'd have liked, but the Avengers were a rogue group who answered only to their own morals and ethics.

Loki and his Chitauri were beaten. New York took a beating, but it had some governments realizing just how big and scary the universe really was. Already they were looking at defending themselves from extra terrestrial threats.

His sources showed NATO getting requests from multiple governments to expand their membership and leaders of NATO were already in negotiations regarding expanding NATO's mission to address the latest elephant in the room.

Stark had SI all over the equipment the Chitauri left behind, with any luck Stark would have new tech to help fight off the next threat in short order. Because Fury wasn't optimistic enough to think this would be the last time a threat to the entire world would come knocking.

The Avengers were well and set as their own group with Rodgers and Stark taking them under their wing.

And even better he had seen a few supposedly solid agents getting jumpy around Captain America after seeing him in action.

Now to see if he could get an excuse to get them under the microscope for a not so friendly chat.

Just maybe he'd crack this thing open.

* * *

Furry hated being right.

That was a lie. He normally loved being right, because it meant he was doing his job and doing it damn well as the foremost spymaster on the planet.

But from time to time his most paranoid fucked up suspicions turned out to be true. It was always a kick to the teeth.

SHIELD wasn't just infiltrated, it had always been infiltrated from the very top down.

The WSC was Hydra with a new face and a smarter way of going about taking over the world.

He had dedicated years to SHIELD. Helped build it into the supreme intelligence organization on the planet. Run and planned more ops than he could begin to count.

Now he was going to light the match that would burn it to the ground.

There was a poetic irony to that.

He always hated poetry.

* * *

Ironic that after tying to trick Tony into taking the Avengers under his wing, he was now in the bridge of a brand new Helicarrier built and designed by SI.

Even as transports launched to evacuate Socovia and his agents laid down covering fire he felt something in his chest grow.

Pride.

This was what SHIELD was supposed to be. Protectors who stood on the line between the darkness and the light. Maybe they had to get their hands dirty, but they stood up with a difiant expression and fury against those who would endanger peace.

"Launch quinjets, I want cover fire where possible for both the transports and the Avengers, diploy combat teams five through nine as overwatch for the transports, come on people we have a city to save!"

Now to hope the Avengers could do what he couldn't; face the big bad tin man down and make him blink.

* * *

authors note:

so I messed up on the first upload, forgot that FFnet removes the scene breaks I had put in, so I just added them back in and did some editing for spelling.


End file.
